


Our most haunting ghosts are what could have been

by Monna99



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 01:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20573975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monna99/pseuds/Monna99
Summary: Lip doesn’t turn. In fact, he’s not sure his neck works that way anymore. It feels like his bones have fused together and any motion will break him apart. He doesn’t need to turn anyway, he knows down to the inch the distance between him and Speirs.





	Our most haunting ghosts are what could have been

“What are you doing?” His tone is alarmed, on the edge of shocked and he reels back, pulling away from those warm hands, away from fingers that had, for a freeze-framed moment, curved softly over his jaw, thumb grazing his lips with the gentlest of touches. He pushes the man back and shoves away from the bed, quickly gaining his feet and making for the exit, but forces himself to stop at the door, back turned to Speirs, fingers gripping the frame so tightly he thinks the wood might break off in his hand. “I won’t …” he takes a deep breath and his throat itches in warning but he doesn’t start coughing again. Seems the doc was right. He’s turned a corner. “I won’t report this, sir,” he finishes quietly, “but, please, never try that again. Not with me, and not with any other soldier. You’ll get yourself shot.”

He doesn’t intend to look back but he can’t stop his gaze from finding the other man’s once more. He expects … 

Hell, he doesn’t know what he expects. Panic? Dismay? Shame? All of the above? Instead, Speirs meets his gaze squarely, unafraid and unabashed, expression betraying only disappointment, and that makes Lip’s heart clench the way the fear had not. He slings his rifle over his shoulder and exits the room in fast, clipped steps, unable to shake the feeling that it’s him who’s got something of which to be ashamed. His face heats at the memory of Speirs’s caress, like a brand on his flushed skin that he can’t wipe away. He’s so distracted, so lost in thought that he runs straight into Captain Nixon, nearly knocking them both off their feet.

“Whoa!” the man says, putting out a hand to keep their heads from bashing together. “Where’s the fire, First Sergeant?” Those warm eyes sparkle with mischief and good humour. As a whole, they’re all in better spirits these days, having left the specter of Bastogne at their backs. 

Bull raises an amused eyebrow at him from behind Nixon and says from around his cigar, “You’re hightailing out of there like you had Krauts on your heels, boy.”

“Or a demon,” Grant agrees.

Naturally, that is precisely when Lip hears the even, assured tread of his C.O. moving down the hallway toward the assembled group. 

“Oh shit,” whispers Christenson, only loud enough for them to hear, “not a demon, the devil.”

He doesn’t know how right he is, but Nixon and Welsh laugh, and Harry claps Christenson on the shoulder. “Come now, boys, you don’t still believe all that nonsense do you?”

Lip doesn’t turn. In fact, he’s not sure his neck works that way anymore. It feels like his bones have fused together and any motion will break him apart. He doesn’t need to turn anyway, he knows down to the inch the distance between him and Speirs. That commanding presence is like the encroaching heat of a wildfire at his back. 

His fingers tighten on his rifle sling as he wipes the emotions off his face. And realizes immediately he made a mistake. The men have gotten to know him too well. While Harry greets Speirs, Captain Nixon frowns and stares at him, thoughtful. No, Lip thinks, that won’t do. The last thing he needs is an intelligence officer getting too curious. But before he can say anything, Nixon opens his mouth. 

“We were just talking about you, Speirs,” he says cheerfully, “wondering how you and the sergeant are making out.”

Lip’s tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth and about as dry as the Mojave Desert so he’s mostly, grudgingly, grateful when Speirs shrugs － Lip can see him out of his peripheral vision, much too close, much too unconcerned － and lights a cigarette. “We’re getting to learn one another,” Speirs says easily while Lip tries not to be sick at the tension building within him. “So far, I know he’s about as chaste and pure as the driven snow.”

The men laugh and jostle Lip good-humouredly at the teasing. Only Lip can hear the cutting edge of it, and his jaw tightens. 

Nix claps Lip on the shoulder, giving him an easy grin as he says to Speirs, “Just keep at him, Captain, we’ll turn him to our side soon enough.”

Lewis Nixon understands nothing of the undercurrents of his statement. He has no idea－

“You’d like to think so,” Harry says, “but you’ve been trying to corrupt Dick from the second you met him and no dice.”

“Corrupt?” Nix’s look turns innocent. “I’m trying to save him from a life of sobriety and the banality of quotidian existence.” He shakes his head despairingly. “But, what can I say? He’s a lost cause that one.” 

They don’t see it, Lip thinks. They have no idea that Speirs is a－. He stops. 

He’d assumed － when Speirs had inexplicably moved to stand before him as Lip sat on the bed, when he’d gone quiet, quieter, and when he’d reached for Lip with heated gaze and questing fingers － that Speirs had to be a homosexual. A deviant. He wonders about that now though. Maybe Speirs is simply one of those men who has been away from civilization for too long. A soldier who believes that you have to make do with what you have, and they have no women. Lip swallows back bile, doesn’t acknowledge to himself that he likes that thought even less. Like he’s just a warm body to take the edge off. An option when Speirs has too few of them.

Anyway, the _why_ doesn’t matter. A man cannot look upon another man with desire. All those Sunday lectures on cleansing the soul had been particularly good at emphasizing the hellfire and brimstone that awaited those who sinned. In particular, those who were weak to the sins of the flesh. Lip had listened to those lectures as a boy, shocked and terrified, yet with the sure knowledge that he himself wasn’t in danger. He hadn’t liked to listen to the other boys talk about girls and he’d had no interest in kissing them like his friends talked of doing. He’d had no time for that foolishness, not when just six months prior he’d become the man of his house after his father was killed. He’d worked hard all his life, done right by his family, and gotten married the way God commanded. And that was that. 

“Sergeant? Lip?” The hand at his elbow jerks him out of his thoughts and he clears his throat, glancing at Grant who looks concerned. “You feeling any better, sir?” he asks and Lip feels his blood rise to his face when he sees that all the men are staring at him now. He must seem a right fool. 

He doesn’t make eye-contact with Speirs when he nods shortly. “Fine. Doc says I’m on the mend.” He wipes the sweat peppering his forehead and says, “Excuse me, I need to check on the boys.”

Nixon glances again between him and Speirs, frowning. The rest of the group bid him goodbye and he sees them pull Speirs aside to confer in low voices. Another assignment already? It seems there will be no rest for Easy yet. 

As he’s turning, Lip takes just a second too long to glance away and in that breath, Speirs raises his gaze and it falls squarely on Lip with all the impact of Kraut artillery. It leaves him breathless and dazed just like the blast that had knocked him on his ass in Carentan. He turns his head quickly and jogs down the stairs, telling himself he isn’t running from anything. 

The bright day outside, despite the bitter cold, helps soothe the turmoil in his head and he nods and returns the greetings of the men he encounters. He doesn’t let himself think about walking this same path only two hours before with Spears as they headed back to the command post. Everything had seemed so normal then. 

“Incoming!” he hears shouted just as he registers the whistle of a shell. He doesn’t panic and fling himself on the ground like the newer men, instead he watches the sky for signs of the shell the way Captain Speirs does, vigilant. He spots the missile and tracks it as it lands with devastating force about fifteen yards to his left, sending dark earth and rocks flying. In him, there still lives a tiny flame of awe that has not been killed, not yet, for things terrifying, and beautiful. Even the shellings they’d received in Bastogne haven’t eradicated that fondness entirely. Rather than the flesh, perhaps being drawn to captivating, dangerous things is his weakness, his sin, though he’s always considered it a fairly harmless love. On the heels of that reflection comes the image of Captain Speirs as he’d been that night in Rachamps, bathed in candlelight, eyes glittering, and his stomach tightens into knots. It’s not something on which he wants to ruminate, so he forces his feet to move and shoves uncomfortable contemplations aside. 

“Hey, boys,” he greets cheerfully enough as he enters O.P. Two. He waves them down as the men stand to salute, matching his grin. 

“Look who the cat dragged in,” Malark calls and he raises his battered cup in greeting. “Hell, sir, you look better than I do and you have pneumonia. How the hell is that possible?”

Lieb yawns and nods as Perconte sidles up to offer him a cup of coffee. “All that clean living, right, sir?”

It reminds him a little too much of the dig Speirs had made and Lip’s grin strains at the edges. “Right,” he agrees lightly. “And how are you holding up, Frank? Didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”

“Me? I’m like a venereal disease, sir. You’re infected with me for life.”

The men laugh and groan and he sees Lieb lob a small foil at Perc’s head. “I think you took that sex scare-ducation pamphlet a little too seriously, Perconte. Just wrap your jimmy and you won’t have to worry about any venereal diseases.”

“Yeah or handle it yourself,” Malarkey adds, flexing his fingers.

It makes Lip flush to think of things like that, things not discussed in polite society. He knows that the boys engage in self-pleasure at times, hell, he’s seen it, but talking about it, remembering those forbidden, accidental glimpses makes something go molten and soft inside him. Makes him almost quiver in shameful longing. Still, he’s managed to mostly go without and it’d certainly helped that in Bastogne the men had been too focused on either the cold or the shellings to have the time or energy for masturbation.

Perconte smacks the foil packet away, pulling Lip from disturbing thoughts. “How the hell is it that you’ve managed to hang onto one of these all this time? Couldn’t you hang on to some chocolate instead? Anyway, where’d you even get it?”

“I have my ways,” Lieb says. “And I plan on making damn good and enthusiastic use of it the second we get to Mourmelon.” 

The men laugh and it’s a good sound to hear after the endless screams for a medic that still rattle in his head. Not that Haguenau is precisely safe, but they have showers, the heat of a warm fire and slightly better food. “Well, keep your spirits up boys and hopefully we’ll get moved off the line soon enough.”

Lip wouldn’t blame them for dismissing his words, they’ve been promised relief in the past and every time it’s been held just out of reach. Still, hope is all he can offer the men and maybe they need to believe because they nod, throwing out increasingly improbable suggestions about what they’ll do once they hit Mourmelon. 

Lip leaves them to it, their wisecracks and arguments following him out the door. 

“Sergeant Lipton.”

Lip stops and turns, lips quirking in a grin at the sight of Doc Roe. The man’s as grimy and tattered as the rest of them but Lip’s glad he’s mostly lost that haunted expression that had dogged him, dogged all of them Lip supposes, since Bastogne. “Doc, how’s things?”

Gene’s brightness dims just a little at that. “Lost another one today,” he says softly. Like it’s his fault. Like he didn’t do everything he could to save the man. 

“I heard,” he replies evenly, bracing, and claps the doc on his shoulder. “Listen, Gene, why don’t you go get yourself a shower, huh? Then I think you should find Babe. He was looking for you.” 

Eugene nods and stumbles off, dead on his feet. He'll be okay though. Heffron will take care of him. It’s a good thing Doc has someone to lean on, someone on whom to rely in moments like these. Lip thinks of Buck, of how he lost everyone he was close to, and knows that even the strongest, meanest, toughest man needs to reach out to someone else, needs to feel connected to another—

It’s precisely halfway between Easy C.P. and O.P. Two that he’s struck utterly motionless with the realization that makes shame scald his insides like boiling water. Speirs. Speirs had lost a man today. And Speirs had sought out his first sergeant afterward, looking for that connection, for some companionship in the struggle to keep their humanity, their sanity intact as they field the landmines — figurative and literal — of this damned war. 

_That’s why_, he thinks, _that’s why he approached me so suddenly_. There had seemed to be no rhyme or reason when the door to their shared bedroom had whispered open in deference to Lip’s rare naps and Speirs had stepped through, not answering his first sergeant's questioning look, nor his soft, “Captain?” 

Speirs had closed the distance between them in four short steps, the clip of boots crisp in the otherwise silent house. Lip had merely glanced up from his seat on the edge of the bed. He’d woken ten minutes prior and had sat up, luxuriating in breathing without the wracking coughs that left him winded. He still hadn’t been concerned when Speirs had raised his hands and placed them firmly on his shoulders, he’d simply cocked his head quizzically. 

And then … then he’d looked closer at Speirs, had seen something animalistic and fearsome in his eyes. He should have pulled away then, should have pushed those hands off him, but he hadn’t. A treacherous instinct had kept him still, his breath coming out quicker, heart racing as Speirs had stepped even closer so that he was between Lip’s spread legs that had then fallen open further, an unconscious betrayal of his body. The press of Speirs’ legs against the warmth of his inner thighs had held him immobile, enthralled in his Captain’s grasp as those fingers tightened on his shoulder, drawing him closer still until he’d felt Speirs’ breath upon his lips. So close. For the first time, he considers his own blame in what occurred. He should have drawn clearer boundaries, Speirs is not solely to blame. And anyway, in the bright daylight it doesn’t seem so grievous. Nothing had really happened. _Nothing_, he thinks, hand reaching up to where he can still feel the ghost of Speirs’s touch.


End file.
